What Makes You Different
by Kris Yamaki
Summary: Kurt is forced to use his powers to save a girl's life, but after being ridiculed by her mother and witnesses, the pain of rejection begins to burn again. What could help him see the side of himself that society can't?


What Makes You Different  
~*~  
  
To Kurt, it seemed ages since he had been able to walk around the mall on his own... no Kitty, begging him to give her an opinion on a new skirt; no Evan to drag out of the Arcade; no Scott, worrying about what to wear on a date with Jean; no Jean, worrying about what to wear on a date with Scott... and most of all, no Brotherhood in sight. He sighed happily as he browsed the windows of an electronics store, glad that he was finally alone.  
  
After a second of consideration, he entered the store and started to examine the CD players. His had broken recently, and was in dire need of a new one... otherwise, he would be forced to hear Rogue's music blaring from down the hall. The thought gave him a slight shudder.  
  
He picked up one model in particular and glanced it once-over before taking it to the cash register. "Good afternoon, how are you today?" The woman behind the counter asked, giving him a kind smile.  
  
Kurt nodded once to her respectuflly. "Very well, thank you. How much is this?"  
  
She took the CD player and rang a price-check on the register. "...$25.89, sir." He handed her the money, which she put in the cash drawer, and bagged the player and the receipt. "Thank you, and come again!"  
  
As he left, he saw a crowd of people some twenty yards away and started that direction. It took a few minutes of squeezing his way through the crowd before he saw what held everyone's attention: a little girl, no older than eight or nine years, had somehow climbed to the top of the prodigious rock waterfall, and now stood on a single rock, terrified and shaking. Her mother was crying out frantically to her, while the mall staff tried to comfort the mother and coax the child to safety, though nothing helped either of them.  
  
Kurt saw a small pebble give way from underneath the larger rock and gasped, knowing that the rock was about to fall at any moment. He also knew the only way to save her. 'I hope I don't regret this,' he thought quickly, biting his lip. Just as the rock started to fall, he clenched his fists and made the only obvious move: he turned off his holo-watch.  
  
People around him gasped at the blue-furred creature he had suddenly become, but he ignored them and, in a puff of smoke and the familiar *BAMF* noise, teleported to the top of the waterfall. Though he was barely in time to catch the girl as she fell, he managed to catch a good look at her face. He saw a fear in her wide eyes that he had seen many times before; the look that screamed "you're a freak, you're a monster". A fraction of a second passed as he teleported her safely to the ground.  
  
The girl's mother grabbed her daughter from his arms as soon as his feet touched the floor. "Get away from my baby," she snarled, still hystarical from fear.  
  
Kurt shrunk back at her tone. "I'm sorry, I was just trying to..."  
  
The woman wasn't listening; she was busy signing something to her little girl, who shook her head in response. Kurt raised an eyebrow at this until a shout interrupted his train of thought.  
  
"You probably put her there!" A man in the crowd yelled.  
  
"Get outta here, freak!" Another screamed.  
  
The girl gave him a sad smile of apology and waved, bringing a small amount of cheer to the situation. 'That kid is five hundred miles of bad road,' Kurt thought sadly to himself, teleporting to the door and out into a nearby tree. He sighed and felt a familiar lump catch in his throat. 'Oh, great...' Swallowing roughly, he mentally kicked himself and turned on his holo-watch. "I may never do THAT again," he muttered as he jumped easily to the ground.  
  
~*~  
  
As Kurt entered the Institute, he saw Scott and Jean talking at the foot of the stairs and walked past them without a glance.  
  
"Hey Kurt, how..." Jean trailed off as he went by. "...what happened?"  
  
"Check the news," he snapped back. "I'm sure it's all over the city by now."  
  
She and Scott exchanged glances and headed into the kitchen to see what their friend had been so angry about. "I've never seen him this way," Scott mused, holding the door for Jean. "What do you think's gotten into him?"  
  
"I don't know," she answered with a shrug.  
  
"What's gotten into who?" A familiar voice asked. The two glanced over to see Rogue sitting at the counter, a soda can stopped en route to her lips.  
  
Scott grimaced. "It's Kurt. He just brushed us off on his way upstairs, saying something about the news."  
  
"Do you think he gave himself away at the mall?" Jean asked as a realization hit her.  
  
Rogue gave a small laugh. "One way to find out..." Picking up the remote from off the table, she turned the TV on and switched the channel to a news station. Sure enough, the anchor was just starting to read a new story.  
  
*This just in: another mutant sighting occured at the Bayvile Mall this afternoon around 3:30P.M. Some witnesses claim a "blue demon" saved a small child from falling to her death after she had climbed the center entryway waterfall; others say it put her there and staged her rescue for publicity.*  
  
A footage of Kurt *BAMF*ing to the ground with the girl in his arms flashed on the screen. Jean stifled a gasp and Rogue gave an aggrivated sigh. Both glanced in unison at Scott, who shook his head and sighed reproachfully.  
  
"Kurt, how many times..." he muttered to himself, but stopped as the anchor spoke again.  
  
*The creature disappeared after fellow shoppers tried to stop its escape. One report gave a description of a brief flash and a whisp of smoke when it apparently disapparated into thin air. If you have any information pertaining to this mutant or others of its kind, contact your local law inforcement immediat--*  
  
Rogue turned off the TV in mid-sentence and slammed the remote onto the table. "What was he thinking, just 'porting about like it's normal behavior? Don't you think there could have been some other way to save that girl?"  
  
"Calm down, Rogue." Jean sighed. "If you were in Kurt's place with his powers, wouldn't you do the same thing?"  
  
She scoffed. "Knowing ME, I wouldn't be at the mall in the first place."  
  
Scott stared at the floor thoughtfully. "Well, you have to admit that he was brave, knowing that his appearance might not have been accepted... especially after the anti-mutant radicals have come out of hiding," he muttered. "And it was somewhat of a smarter move -- people still don't know the 'blue demon's alternate identity."  
  
Jean gave him a somewhat sheepish look, shrugging as she spoke. "Maybe one of us should go talk to him or tell Professor Xavier, Scott. It might help him to talk about it..."  
  
"I don't know. He might want to be alone for now..." he made his way to the door and glanced back at the two girls. "But I think I'll at least tell Professor X."  
  
~*~  
  
Kurt sighed and rolled over on his bed. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't rid himself of the episode at the mall... the look in that little girl's eye, the harsh tone from her mother, and angry shouts from the people in the crowd enraptured his brain and caused him to groan in mental agony. "I should have thought it through," he moaned to himself. "Why did I have to be so stupid?"  
  
"Saving the life of that girl was not stupid, Kurt," Professor Xavier's voice replied from the doorway. Kurt glanced over and saw his mentor, sitting in his wheelchair just inside of the door.  
  
"But you've always taught me to resist using my powers, Professor -- couldn't I have stood back and allowed someone else to catch her or something?" He asked, moving into a sitting position that allowed his tail to hang off the edge of the bed.  
  
Professor Xavier gave somewhat of a sigh as he further entered the room. "It is not so much of resistance... I've been trying to teach you the understanding of when and when not to use your powers."  
  
"So I DID blow it." Kurt rested his elbows on his knees, leaning his head in his hands for support.  
  
"I didn't say that." The professor folded his hands. "You had correct judgement for use of your powers, and another was saved because you understood that the time was right. I only wish that the setting could have been different... the less media attention mutants recieve these days, the better."  
  
The teen laid back on his bed and stared at the ceiling. "Thank you, Professor, but I still feel that I could have made a better decision! I keep seeing it playing out in my mind, but every time, it seems that there should have been another way to save her."  
  
"There could have been, but you chose the best possible solution by the circumstances." He smiled at his student and gave him a small shrug. "And that is what the X-Men are supposed to do." He turned his chair about to leave, but stopped and turned halfway back. "Oh, and this letter just came for you... I thought you'd like to see it." Handing a small, white envelope to him, Professor Xavier turned again and left the room.  
  
Kurt thoughtfully turned the envelope over in his hand, thinking about the Professor's words as he tore it open. A piece of pink paper had been folded in half, which he opened and read.  
  
~Dear Mr. Mutant,  
  
Thank you for saving me from falling today. I wasn't supposed to send this to you, because Mom said I wasn't supposed to talk to you, but I wanted you to know that I was greatful. She doesn't understand that it's okay to be different! I haven't been able to hear since I was four, and even though she takes care of me, she is afraid of people like you because you aren't like us. But not a lot of people see you and your friends the way I do.  
  
Thanks again. Please send me a reply soon!  
  
Sincerely,  
Kara Barton~  
  
Kurt smiled. 'Maybe it wasn't so bad after all,' he thought, putting the letter and the envelope on his bed. Another piece of paper was left in his hand from behind the envelope, folded smaller than the first, that had gone unnoticed. Kurt blinked for a moment before picking it up off of the floor. The handwriting was different... it had to be someone older, maybe his age.  
  
*You don't run with the crowd, you go your own way  
You don't play after dark, you light up my day  
Got your own kind of style that sets you apart  
Maybe that's why you captured my heart  
I know sometimes you feel like you don't fit in  
But this world doesn't know what you have within  
When I look at you, I see something rare  
A rose that can grow anywhere  
And there's no one I know that can compare  
  
What makes you different makes you beautiful  
What's there inside you shines through to me  
In your eyes I see all the love I'll ever need  
What makes you different makes you beautiful to me  
  
You've got something so real, you touched me so deep  
See, material things don't matter to me  
So come as you are, you've got nothing to prove  
You won me with all that you do  
And I wanna take this chance to say to you  
  
What makes you different makes you beautiful  
What's there inside you shines through to me  
In your eyes I see all the love I'll ever need  
What makes you different makes you beautiful to me  
  
You don't know how you touched my life  
In so many ways I just can't describe  
You taught me what love is supposed to be  
it's all the little things that make you beautiful to me*  
  
Another, somewhat embarassed smile crept up his face this time. Who in the world would write him something like this? He laid back down on his bed and sighed happily.  
  
Maybe today was a good day after all... 


End file.
